In Memorium
by Quis Custodiet
Summary: Sometimes promises don't guarantee a happy ending. When tragedy strikes a certain bespectacled dorm manager a much older Motoko Aoyama and her friend Kaolla Su go on one last adventure to save Keitaro. Will the lonely samurai again make the choice to follow the sword, or will she instead choose to follow her heart? It all depends on what she remembers...


A lone figure pushed his motorized bicycle up the twisting mountain path. Gravity and the steep incline had long since made the tiny motor on his improvised scooter useless and while he had considered abandoning the bike to continue on foot, ultimately he decided against it. It wasn't that he was afraid of having anything stolen; after all there was no one around in this lonely part of Kyoto to do such a thing in the first place. No, he simply lugged the bike along out of obligation for his job as a mailman and because the ride back down would likely be his only reward for such a stoic trip.

Stopping to catch his breath for a moment, he looked up towards the peak of the mountain and shook his head.

" _This is the 21_ _st_ _century, who runs a dojo on the top of a bloody mountain!"_

He adjusted the worn leather satchel on his shoulder and grabbed the handles of his bike, drawing a long breath of mountain air into his lungs. At least that was something - fresh air was a bit of a novelty these days in modern Japan and he idly wondered if that was the reason for the remote location. Regardless, it was still annoying to have to make this trip all for the sake of a single letter.

" _Haven't these people heard of email?"_

LH-LH-LH

She woke up as she did every day, well before dawn and with a slight ache in her left side that indicated that despite her otherwise excellent health, she had more years left behind her than ahead. The thought itself wasn't an entirely unwelcome one; after all, she would admit that this was simply the natural order of things: people are born, they grow old and then they die. However, recently she had been asking herself if she was satisfied with this, or more specifically satisfied with what she had accomplished.

Or as the case may be, what she had _not_ accomplished.

She had noticed that as the years had gone on it had gotten harder for her to banish such thoughts from her mind. Perhaps this too was a natural part of aging – letting regrets pile up on you until they buried you in the grave. She would have to meditate on this at a later date, because for now she had a visitor…

There was a slight tap on the door. It was entirely expected as she had heard the footsteps approaching from a distance that would shame an owl.

"Sensei," came a hushed voice from the other side of the thin paper, "Will you be leading us this morning?"

She looked around her simple room, the room of the master of the Shinmei-ryū School and tried to smile. How could she have regrets when she had achieved everything her heart had ever desired? After all, wasn't she the greatest swordswoman that the Aoyama clan had ever produced?

She was.

"Hai," she said and with that simple statement, Motoko Aoyama scowled and rose to her feet to face another day as a coward and a liar.

LH-LH-LH

Even though the morning exercises had been strenuous she hadn't felt the urge to satisfy her hunger. It was becoming an increasingly common sight for her to excuse herself from the large communal meals and retreat to the gardens behind the dojo for meditation - nourishment of the spirit taking precedence over nourishment of the body. It was frustrating that she could find neither.

She could feel the presence behind her long before it had approached and she smiled slightly in a way that made her look much more like her older sister than she would have cared to admit.

"Leave it on the rock please," she said without turning her back or opening her eyes. The gasp that came from the student, a fourth year if she was correct in her guess, was a childish reward for her behavior, but she savoured it.

" _You have to impress the students every now and then to keep the mystique up, isn't that right Tsuruko?_ " she said inwardly to her now departed elder sister.

She had passed two years ago from ovarian cancer. It was a long and painful death, but not one that Tsuruko complained about. After all, she had passed cradled in the love of her husband and children and while Motoko was certain that Tsuruko would have wanted more time with them, she also knew that her sisters spirit was at ease. Tsuruko had, after all, achieved her destiny.

" _Beloved wife and mother,"_ were the words of her epitaph. Tsuruko had chosen them herself.

Motoko pushed her grief aside and opened her eyes. The student had left a large envelope on the rock next to her and while it was unusual for her to receive mail she didn't have to guess from where it had originated – the three large eyes staring back at her from the postage answered that question.

Her hands trembled with either anticipation or nervousness as she tore off the end of the envelope and examined its contents. Inside was a newspaper – a local from Hinata City, with a small post-it note affixed to it. The paper had an article circled in red and she quickly scanned it, her expression changing from intrigue, to sadness, and then finally anger. Her hands instinctively went to her side, searching for the hilt of the weapon that was still resting in her room.

"Dammit," she muttered under her breath and rose to her feet.

Hours later the majority of the Shinmei-ryū school would be conducting a search for their missing sensei and the student who had delivered the strange letter would be sitting in this exact same spot with another, older instructor, puzzling over the words written on the little yellow square in front of them.

" _He needs us. – S_ "

LH-LH-LH

She had expected the journey to take longer than it had, or at least long enough for her to work out her anger before she arrived. She had expected to travel by foot to a train station, and then board the line heading towards Maizuru. From the port city she would then secure passage to her ultimate destination. The long travel and the long trip by boat should have given her ample time to work out her remaining… issues. However, once she had descended the mountain she had been greeted by a sleek black car that slowly rolled up next to her.

The windows, tinted smoky black, rolled down and a man with a thick tan asked her a simple question, "Aoyama-san?"

She nodded. The car came to a stop.

"She sent us for you."

Motoko rolled her eyes, "Of course she did," she muttered under her breath.

Now, only a half a day away, she was walking along a brightly light boulevard in a pleasant sea-side town, the smell of the ocean mixing with freshly baked bread wafting pleasantly to her nose. For most people, the sights, the sounds and the smells of this island paradise would have been relaxing and calming.

It just made her annoyed.

"How much further?" she asked her traveling companion, a large brick of a man in a dark suit.

"Not much further Aoyama-san, the Royal Residence is just ahead"

True to his word, only a scant few seconds later Motoko saw the sparkling palace crest above the hill. For the first time since she was a much younger woman, she let out an involuntary gasp.

" _Amazing!"_ she inwardly thought and then quickly followed up with a much more sober thought –

" _I hope she doesn't try to sleep with me."_

LH-LH-LH

"That's insane!" she screamed across the table at the petite blonde woman, her fists pummelling the lacquered wood finish for extra emphasis.

The three servants at the side of the table visibly jumped. One of them, a maid, fingered a gun hidden in her skirt but made no move, while the Princess of Molmol, Her Royal Majesty Kaolla Su merely ignored the outburst and continued eating her dinner. She had spent the last two weeks locked up in her laboratory and dammit, she was hungry.

Motoko saw that she wasn't getting a reaction out of her friend and settled back in her seat, she crossed her arms angrily under her bust and wondered what had possessed her to leave the dojo and travel half way across the pacific for such outrageous nonsense. She wasn't truly angry at Su – after all, the diminutive Molmolian princess had always been eccentric, but there was a time when Motoko thought that _she_ at least had a better head on her shoulders.

" _Patience. She's probably grieving like I am. Let's try this again."_

Motoko settled her feelings; long years of practice had taught her how to reign in her natural hot-headed impulses.

"Su… I understand you're upset. I'm upset too… actually, that's not all of it – I'm furious," Motoko winced and grit her teeth. Controlling her anger was something easier said than done.

"When I read what she had done… I wanted to kill her. Do you understand? I am fully capable of this Su – I wanted to march right over to Hinata City and stick the Hina Blade up her…"

Motoko let the words trail off, but then continued with a hint of malice.

"Sideways."

Su chuckled and put down her fork. She looked Motoko square in the eye and said in an uncharacteristically dark voice, "I had a sniper team following her for a week."

Motoko blinked, she didn't know if Su was kidding or not.

"It doesn't matter," Motoko said with an air of sadness, "Our anger won't bring him back."

This time it was Su's turn to slap her palms down on the table. "That's what I'm saying Motoko!"

"But this…" Motoko didn't even have the words, she merely gestured in the air, "its fantasy. Things like that aren't possible, even for you."

"It's not fantasy. I did it. Or at least, I will. Let me show you."

Su snapped her fingers and a man brought over a pad of paper and pen, presenting them both to Motoko.

"Write whatever you want on that piece of paper, then show it to me."

Motoko gave Su a sideways glance. She was suspecting some sort of trickery, but she felt she owed it enough to her friend to go along for now. A couple of moments later she had written down a sentence and, in an attempt to trip up any sort of "magic trick", she drew a few small pictures as well. She then showed her work to Su, who took it and placed down on a dinner plate between them.

"Okay, now lift up your plate Motoko," said Su.

Motoko rolled her eyes and did as instructed, she was not all together surprised to see a piece of paper facing her that perfectly duplicated the exact message and doodles that she had wrote just moments before.

"Nice trick Su, how did you do it?" she asked.

"Just flip over the paper," said Su with a grin.

Motoko did as instructed and then read the message that Su had written in her own handwriting.

" _I told you, it's time travel! Will you stop being such a grouch and let's go PLAY!"_

Motoko slapped her hand to her face and groaned.

"Okay, fine! Let's suppose for a moment that I do not deny the existence of time travel and let's put aside the fact that using something like this in this way is probably ethically or morally wrong, what do you intend to do? Go back in time and save him before…"

Motoko couldn't finish the sentence. Her anger was starting to come back.

Su finished off the banana crème brulee she had been working on and pushed the plate to the side, letting one of her servants remove it from the table.

"Not exactly," she said to Motoko.

"How much do you know about their life after the marriage?" she asked.

"I know about the divorce. I know how she swindled the inn from him and then kept him on as the manager so she could keep abusing him." Motoko's eye was starting to twitch.

"Wouldn't it be better if that never happened?" asked Su.

"Yes, of course it would be…" Motoko finally caught on to what Su was trying to say.

"Do you mean?" she asked.

Su nodded.

"But how? You know how Keitaro was with his entire 'promise girl' fixation. We could probably show him his own obituary and he wouldn't believe us."

Motoko actually believed that. Keitaro was, to his detriment, both incredibly trusting and incredibly faithful. It had been one of the things about him that had eventually won Motoko's own heart, but now it seemed like it would get him killed. There'd be no way they could convince him to give up Naru, not even if it meant all these terrible things would happen – he just simply wouldn't, or couldn't, believe it.

Su coughed a bit in obvious discomfort. She had pretty much worked out all of the details of her plan, run the simulations, and determined the chances of success. She had done her homework as well as she could. Everything would probably work out, but it all hinged on one person and a guess that she hoped she was right about.

"We're not going to change Keitaro, at least – not directly."

"What then?" asked Motoko, "Kill Naru?" she added. She was not entirely joking.

"We're going to change you!" stated Su as she eyed her friend for a reaction.

"Me?" gasped Motoko. "How is that going to help anything?"

"It's simple Motoko!" chirped Su, "We'll just make you fall in love with him!"

Motoko looked at Su like she had spouted a second head. "You know Su, I already _do_ love him."

" _It's funny how easily I can say that now that it doesn't matter."_

"Yes, _you_ do," said Su, "But high school Motoko doesn't. That's what we're going to change."

Motoko considered this for a moment and then asked, "So, I go back in time and tell the younger me to make a move on Keitaro before Naru destroys their life? That doesn't seem like much of a plan; wouldn't it be easier for me to convince someone like Kitsune or even Mutsumi? You remember what I was like."

Motoko grumbled inwardly at herself. Her behavior and failures not just as a woman, but as a _human being_ had plagued her for a long time.

"Not exactly like that, but there is one thing we absolutely cannot do," Su made sure to pause to emphasize this point.

"We cannot alter the relationships between Keitaro and any of the other girls. No matter what."

Motoko raised an eye, "Just me huh? That seems a little strange…"

"Two reasons," said Su as she held up her fingers.

"Reason 1: The other girls all have husbands and families. They've all worked hard to have happy lives, some of them extremely hard. There are children involved, children I've held in my own arms and I'm not going to erase that."

Su thought about her friend Kitsune and what she went through over the last couple of decades. No, the old fox deserved her happy ending. Su was going to make sure she kept it.

"Reason 2: Is because it has to be you," smirked Su.

Motoko gazed at her friends face and found some sadness hidden behind her otherwise trademarked grin. She knew that Su was struggling with something and she ventured a guess.

"Su…" she began, "I'm not the only Hinata girl that didn't have children or a family," she stated.

The expression on Su's face changed, just for a split second. Motoko couldn't tell what the smaller girl was thinking, but she could feel the pain and sadness acutely because they mirrored her own.

"It's okay Motoko", she eventually replied in a more subdued tone.

"Are you sure Su? Is this really alright with you?" Motoko asked.

Su's smile widened and she nodded her head.

"You're the heroine Motoko; I'm just the supporting character. Now let's go save the prince!"

LH-LH-LH

"Second thoughts?" asked Su as she checked over the information being pumped out by the complex computer array before her.

Motoko shuddered as she continued to strip down her clothes.

"More like third or fourth thoughts," she replied.

It wasn't much of a joke. She had spent the better part of last night arguing to herself that she had given one lifetime already to her family obligation. It pained her to no end, but if she was successful, then the Shinmei-ryū School would have to find a new sensei. It was a difficult decision, but she knew that ultimately while she was prepared to suffer, to live a life without love on her own, she wasn't prepared to sacrifice Keitaro to her own sense of obligation. It was a lesson that Motoko had learned well – mastery of the sword was not an end in and of itself, it was merely a tool. It was the heart of the warrior that determined how it would be used. To fight for honor or glory was a shallow thing compared to fighting for family, friends and love.

" _You do not need to be the head of a dojo to be an ally of justice,_ " she thought to herself as she approached the strange contraption that her friend had built.

Su turned around and smiled at her friend. She had to admit, she was impressed – chronologically Motoko may have been a middle-aged woman, but she easily had the physique of someone decades younger. The dim light from the CRT monitors illuminated her otherwise pale alabaster skin and the entire effect contrasted with her lustrous black hair in a way that made her look almost otherworldly – like a ghost, or as Su mused, like a "ghost in the machine". It was perhaps fitting for what they were attempting to do.

"If you want, we can delay," Su offered as she watched Motoko climb up the ladder that lead to the sensory deprivation tank that was the heart of Su's "time travel" invention.

Motoko shook her head, "No time like the present" she joked as she slid off the top of the ladder into the tank, her head bobbing up above the water line.

Su climbed up the ladder after Motoko and started to help the older woman attach various sensors to her body and head. "Let's go over this one more time."

Motoko closed her eyes and recounted her earlier discussion with Su. "I'll have somewhere between ten seconds and five minutes to do something to change the past," she said as she took a deep breath from the oxygen tube that was now hanging around her neck.

"That's right. When you're in the past, you'll actually be inside yourself, or your past self to be more accurate," Su added.

"Two minds occupying one body," Motoko continued.

Su locked her gaze on her friend as she adjusted some tubing.

"This is actually one of the reasons why it needs to be you Motoko; you're the only one with enough mental discipline and conditioning to reliably take control of their former body."

Motoko nodded. The two of them had gone over this before and Su's explanations, as fantastical as they seemed, did make a strange sort of sense. Her dedication to martial arts and meditation would give her an edge in forming the necessary link between her will and mind in the present and her body and actions in the past. Or at least, that was the theory.

"So, why the first day?" asked Motoko, "Wouldn't it be better to do something like say… lose my duel with Tsuruko?"

"I thought about that," said Su. "It does have a pretty high chance of success, but we'll hold that as a back-up plan for now."

Su didn't mention to Motoko that while there was a near 70% chance of success in that scenario that there was also a non-trivial chance that it ended with Motoko committing suicide and an even greater chance that it ended with Keitaro injuring or killing himself to prevent it. Taking another look at her friend, she concluded that Motoko would probably be willing to risk it, but Su just couldn't.

" _We'll cross that bridge if we need to,"_ she thought to herself.

"Anyway, to answer your question," said Su, "You know how in every manga or anime the first girl you meet is always the heroine right?"

Motoko chuckled, "I think there's a bit more to it than that, but yes…"

Su ignored Motoko's laughter and continued.

"Well, there's one first that's more powerful than that," she said, pausing for dramatic tension.

"The first kiss!" she exclaimed, her finger jutting straight up into the air as punctuation.

"So, you're suggesting that I just kiss Keitaro?" asked Motoko with some hesitance in her voice. It's not that she didn't necessarily _want_ to kiss him, she was just dubious as to if it wouldn't end with poor Keitaro being blasted into space when her younger self recovered control.

Su looked sheepish for a moment; obviously she was thinking something along the same lines as Motoko about Keitaro's likely fate.

"Well, the most important thing is that while you do it, you _feel_ it," she said.

Motoko just looked at Su blankly, not comprehending what she was trying to say.

"I mean, try this – When you are firing up the old smooch cannon at our boy Keitaro, make sure you poor every ounce of how _you_ feel into it. And I mean, YOU – the adult Motoko."

Motoko considered this for a moment and then said, "Wait, do you mean that _she_ will…"

Su started nodding her head vigorously.

"It works both ways Motoko – your consciousness will be in her body and you will be able to feel her feelings and hear her thoughts, but she'll be able to do the same to you. You won't have much time, so make sure that your heart is solid."

At the pronouncement of those words, Motoko felt fear creep into her breast for the first time in years.

"So you're saying that if I don't love Keitaro enough, that _she_ won't feel it," she stated in a dull monotone.

" _I never did love him enough... Keitaro forgive me for being such a coward."_

Su took an air-pressurized hypodermic and pressed it against Motoko's neck, the chemicals inside started to instantly react with her blood. She took one long look at her friend before she closed the top of the chamber and made one final pronouncement.

"This is the other reason why it has to be you. You love him the most. Believe in it Motoko."

And with that, the heavy metal cover came down and Motoko was lost to the darkness.

LH-LH-LH

The cry of "PERVERT!" reverberated through the halls of Hinata-sou and Motoko felt her body spring into action.

" _That sounded like Narusegawa! Is she under attack?"_

As Motoko raced out of her room, she caught a brief glimpse of her reflection in the mirror.

" _Wow, do I look young."_

" _Why did I just think that?"_

Somewhere in the back of her mind another presence silently cursed itself for almost screwing up straight out of the gate.

"EEK! Get him!" the cries were getting closer now when Motoko finally found the culprit. Indeed, it seemed as if an actual pervert was running through the hallowed all-girls dormitory of Hinata-sou and to add even more depravity to the scenario, he was nearly nude!

Leaping into the action the dangerous kendoka covered the ground towards the man with a speed and grace that belied her young years. She could see the terror in the perverts face as she raised her bokken above her head and prepared to strike.

"Zen-urk!" she cried. She had just been about to unleash one of her schools secret techniques on the evil demon when she found one of her feet going mysteriously out of control and leading her into a tailspin. Panicking she dropped her bokken and flew forward, directly into the arms of the lecherous male.

She was stunned. Her body was on top of this man, his rude parts pressing against her, their faces just a few centimetres apart. Involuntarily she could feel her temperature rise and she tried to break away, to not look at his face. She tried to resist but mysteriously she felt her eyes instead drawn to his. She had never been this close to a male before and even though he had just been in the hot springs, there was something about his presence, about his scent that inflamed her.

Time seemed to slow down as their faces inched closer together.

She didn't know who had started it, or why, but she felt as if she had lost complete control of her body as their two lips touched. It was a slow, awkward kiss at first, but it did something to her, it was as if someone had simultaneously released a horde of butterflies in her stomach and lit a fire in-between her legs. She hungrily pressed her kiss and brought her hands up to the side of his face, it was all the encouragement the young man needed to return the kiss back with force. The effect it had on her was immediate and pronounced – that small fire blazed and grew into an inferno. Her body was obviously on autopilot as her tongue started to venture forth to seek out the lips of the mysterious stranger under her.

"Um, Motoko?" came a voice from behind her. Some part of her brain that was still functioning recognized it as Kitsune.

"What the hell are you doing girl?"

LH-LH-LH

Motoko sputtered as she opened her eyes. Evidently she had swallowed some of the fluid in the deprivation tank as Su had brought her back to consciousness.

"So, how did it go?" she heard Su ask.

"Uh it went… OH, watch out!" she exclaimed as she pulled herself up over the edge of the tank and vomited the contents of her stomach all over the floor of Su's lab.

"Hmm. I was afraid of that," Su sounded detached as she examined the numbers flying across the digital readout on her PDA.

"What?" said Motoko as she tried to wipe her mouth.

"Oh, time dilation sickness. Don't worry, it'll pass. Just think of it like this – you were back in the past for less than a minute, but from your body's perspective, including your physical mind, you were out for half a day."

Motoko looked shocked. "H-H-Half a day!" she sputtered. It slowly dawned on her

"Don't worry, I said it'll be fine!" chirped Su. "More importantly, describe to me the first time you met Keitaro."

Motoko tried to put her concerns out of her mind. While she might not have been a genius like Su, she was smart enough to figure out that if she had to make multiple "time jumps" that it could cost her the better part of her remaining life to spend even a few hours in the past. Hopefully it wouldn't come to that.

" _Could I do that? Spend every day down here in this tank just for the chance to spend a minute or two with him?"_

She closed her eyes and pondered the answer to that question.

" _Yes, I could."_

"Earth to Motoko. Come in Motoko. Are you listening?" said Su as she bopped her friend on the head.

"Sorry! I'm just… a little disoriented. What was it again? The first time I met Keitaro?"

Su nodded.

Motoko smiled and remembered her now re-written past with utter clarity.

"It was love at first sight."

LH-LH-LH

Motoko lied back on the bed. It was soft, much softer than she was used to, but Su had claimed that the Molmolian palace didn't have anything firmer, so she let it pass. She tossed and turned a bit trying to get comfortable and then just gave up, defeated by royal opulence.

" _I guess I'll have to learn to live with a bit of luxury, at least for a while."_

Her earlier guess about the length of this endeavour was likely correct. The "change" they had enacted today was just a simple and ultimately minor one to the past time-line. The elder Motoko would have to give her younger self many more nudges until the sum of them amounted to anything that could actually alter her or Keitaro's fate.

" _I still can't believe it. I remember it so clearly, like it was yesterday – which I suppose, it might have well been. The whole thing makes my head hurt. I never understood why I acted the way I did the first time I saw Kei-kun, but now it makes sense. It was the older 'me' and her feelings inside the younger 'me' and her body."_

Motoko let that idea roll around in her head for a moment, but then she had an errant thought that troubled her.

" _Wait – if that was my current feelings, then how much of my current feelings are based on my feelings off that first meeting? Wouldn't that have changed not just the past, but me as well?"_

She audibly groaned. There was no way she was going to figure this out, even if she spent the next six hours puzzling instead of sleeping. What was it that the funny kid on that old television show once said?

" _Time travel is a cornucopia of disturbing concepts."_

Motoko shut her eyes and tried to focus on calming her breathing in an effort to get some sleep. She was almost having success when the memory, still strong, of her first kiss came back to her. This time however, she decided not fight it and fifteen minutes later a much more physically relaxed Motoko, riding high off a wave of endorphins, rolled over and went to sleep.

LH-LH-LH

Motoko looked over the list again for the fifth time.

"This many?" she asked incredulously.

Su nodded. "Well, I don't think you'll have to stop all of them. Eventually over time they should taper off on their own."

Motoko wondered how Su had managed to get such a comprehensive list and she felt her stomach lurch. She knew that she had attacked, assaulted, or otherwise abused Keitaro quite frequently when she was still a girl, but she never knew it had been _this_ many times.

" _Why did I do this?"_ she berated herself.

"We might as well get started," she said with resignation in her voice. She wasn't sure what she dreaded more – spending days in the dark tank trying to stop her younger self from being such a dishonourable psycho, or having to relive the shame of hurting the person you love every day for weeks on end.

If there was a small consolation, it seemed that Su understood her consternation on some level or another. At least Motoko would get a chance to make amends and perhaps even lift make her burden of guilt a shade lighter. Su, unfortunately, would have to carry hers.

LH-LH-LH

Motoko's pen was scribbling furiously at the page in her workbook. She'd like to be able to say she was being a studious young woman, but the truth was that she was simply indulging in a hobby that had only become more frequent with the arrival of a certain _male_ at the Hinata-sou.

She was writing a romance story.

" _Why can't I get him out of my head?_ "

The seemingly fated kiss between the two on their first day of meeting sparked a lot of jokes at Motoko's expense from Kitsune and scorn from Naru, but had left the young kendo girl with an uncertain heart that fluttered between delight and despair. She was loathe to admit it, but her entire life had essentially turned upside down ever since that _man_ had arrived and she didn't know if there was any way for her to fix it.

Or even if she wanted to fix it.

"PERVERT!"

The cry ringing out across the Hinata-sou was familiar one by now and Motoko raced to the scene of the alert, knowing all too well what she was going to see.

"N-N- Narusegawa-san! It was an accident! It was an accident!" came the plaintive wail of one extremely panicked dorm-manager.

Motoko could see Naru winding up for a megaton punch that was probably going to send Keitaro spinning around the room like a top. Without thinking she found her own hand reaching out and blocking the strike before it could land.

"M-Motoko?" came the shocked response from both Keitaro and Naru.

" _Why did I do that? Must be automatic response."_

"What are you doing Narusegawa-san!" she barked at the older girl. There was anger, real anger in Motoko's voice and it took everyone, including Motoko by surprise.

"W-What? Why are you protecting that pervert Motoko-chan?" gasped Naru, the older girl obviously taken aback at the venom that the kendoka had directed at her.

"What did he do this time?" Motoko asked, trying to keep her tone as even as possible despite how much she absolutely detested Naru.

" _Why do I hate Naru so much? Why am I so mad at her? Men are perverts. So… why do I want to strangle her?"_

She looked over at the manager. He was no longer cowering, instead he was looking… relieved.

" _Is he happy because I saved him? Why did I save him?"_

"He was peeping on me changing!" screamed Naru. She tried to move forward towards Keitaro, but Motoko kept her body in-between the two of them.

"I didn't mean to Narusegawa-san, please believe me!" pleaded the manager.

"I was just trying to see where that hole in the ceiling went to because I wanted to fix it like you asked!"

" _He means the hole in the managers ceiling. It's his job to fix these things. Obviously this was an accident."_

Motoko was surprised by how quickly she came to that conclusion.

" _Where did that thought come from?"_

"I believe you," Motoko stated as she visibly relaxed.

Of course, this caused both Naru and Keitaro to gasp again in surprise.

She looked at the manager and nodded her head.

"Keitaro-san isn't the kind of guy to take advantage of women," Motoko didn't know why, but for some reason she felt very certain of this statement.

Narusegawa scoffed at the younger girl, then pointed at her and scowled.

"You don't fool me Aoyama-san! You are just trying to stick up for your pervert boyfriend! Kitsune told me how you were kissing him! I thought for sure that you were just being taken advantage of, but now I know the truth!" and with that pronouncement, Naru turned on her heel and stomped away.

Motoko was watching Naru's back as she fled when Keitaro approached her from the side.

"I'm sorry about that Aoyama-san…"

"Motoko is fine Keitaro-san," she replied without even thinking. She turned around to face him only to find the manager smiling at her and awkwardly rubbing the back of his head.

" _His face is so cute, especially when he smiles"_

"Sorry that she called me your boyfriend Motoko-san…" he lamely offered. Motoko could see a slight blush creeping across his face and it was matched somewhat by her own.

She was about to say something dismissive, but for some reason found herself losing control of her own mouth. What came out next wasn't what she was expecting.

"I'd be happy if that was true. No boy would ever love someone as ugly and as manly as me."

" _Why did I just say that? What is wrong with me?"_

It wasn't that what she said was untrue; it was actually quite the opposite – a colossal truth. These were in fact Motoko's deepest and darkest thoughts about herself, ones that she had never shared with anyone.

" _Great, now he's going to make fun of me."_

Keitaro stood speechless in front of the younger girl. He just couldn't believe that she would have such a low opinion of herself. As he was wont to do, the next words that came out of his mouth were the completely unfiltered truth.

"Are you crazy?" he asked incredulously.

LH-LH-LH

Motoko's eyes rolled around in their sockets as she came back from the memory/time-jump. Dimly, she was aware of Su removing the top from the tank and helping to pull her up, but she was still disoriented as her mind tried to pull apart and separate the difference between what she had _just experienced_ and what was an actual memory.

" _Are you crazy? You're beautiful Motoko-chan!"_

Motoko smiled to herself. That's right, that's what he had said to her at the time. It was the first time Keitaro had called her _Motoko-chan_ and it was also the first time any boy had ever called her beautiful, with or without being subjected to a secret family sword technique. God how she missed hearing those words from him.

"MO-TO-KO!" bellowed an extremely annoyed Kaolla Su, snapping the swordswoman back to reality.

Motoko tried to speak, but found her throat only capable of a raspy croak.

"I said drink this," Su pushed a cup into Motoko's face. She greedily drank from it.

"Two days."

Motoko raised her eyebrow as she continued to drink.

"You were out for two days. What the hell happened?" Motoko could tell from her demeanour that Su was both excited and apprehensive. Her throat now properly lubricated, she related the "memory" she had just experienced back to Su as best she could.

"At least, that's what I think… I can't be sure where the time jump ends and the memory begins," she stated as she dried herself off with the towel Su had provided her with.

Su scratched her chin as she thought, briefly looking over the data on her PDA.

"You might have rewritten a lot of history with that one jump. That could be why you were 'gone' for so long. It's a shame that we can't measure and quantify the difference between the two timelines."

Motoko waved her hand in the air and sat down. "This is… all too complicated for me. I just swing a sword, you're the evil genius."

Su looked down at her list of "intervention events" and spoke out loud her next thought, "I wonder if this list is getting smaller or bigger."

"What? Wouldn't it be getting smaller?" asked Motoko.

"There's really no way to tell," stated Su. "There's nothing to compare it against because if you do manage to re-write history, then the timeline that the list we are working from gets destroyed."

Motoko took a moment to consider this, and then suddenly her face lit up with panic.

"Wait – do you mean we've probably changed things we are not aware of? Like maybe terrible things?" she asked.

"It's possible, but unlikely. Let's go check." Su swivelled around in her chair and brought up a program on one of the many screens surrounding her workstation.

"I built this little tool just to monitor certain events, or more accurately, people we know." She jabbed her fingers on the keyboard and quickly the screen was filled up with an assortment of small icons, each one emblazoned with the face of a friend or former Hinata resident.

"Good news!" exclaimed Su, "Everyone is alive!"

Motoko groaned, "I was hoping that this would be somewhat… expected?"

Su shrugged. "You never can tell with time-travel. Also, no one seems to be in jail. It looks like everyone is married, well except for Naru and…"

"And Keitaro, is he… ?"

Su turned off her monitor. "Do you remember having a wedding?" she asked snidely.

"Right," replied Motoko.

"Motoko, are you still okay with this? Going forward with this?" Su asked.

"Yes… I think so. Are you having second thoughts?"

Su gave Motoko a bright smile.

"Get some rest Motoko. I need to figure out our next move."

The beleaguered swordswoman nodded her head. She was tired beyond belief, but there was a spring in her step as she returned to her bed chambers. The memory she had experienced was still fresh in her mind and when she closed her eyes she swore she could still _feel_ his presence around her.

LH-LH-LH

Su watched Motoko leave and then turned around in her chair, quickly flicking the monitor back to life. She wasn't sure if this had been the state of all the players on the board when she had launched her little scheme, after all – there was really no way of knowing what had changed from iteration to iteration of the timeline, but she knew that she smelled an opportunity.

With a practiced movement she navigated her mouse over to a file and opened a profile that the Molmolian Central Intelligence Agency had prepared just that morning.

" _Name: Otohime Mutsumi, Occupation: School Teacher, Marital Status: Single."_

Su scrolled further down the report, taking in the information as it came. Mutsumi had never married and still lived at home with her aging mother and a couple of younger siblings. She had mostly kept up her friendships with Naru and Keitaro, even as the couple's own relationship had deteriorated. This wasn't entirely surprising; after all, Mutsumi had been the biggest supporter of the pair since she had been reintroduced into their lives.

" _This might be the x-factor. She has no spouse, no children and lives alone with her mother. Technically this would be breaking one of the rules I set for myself, but Motoko doesn't need to know that… and even more perplexing, if I succeed then it's possible I wouldn't even know I had broken one of my own rules. Ugh. Time paradoxes!"_

Su took another look at the photo of Mutsumi on her computer monitor. She'd miss the timid Okinawan and she hoped that eventually she'd have a good life, maybe even a better one than she currently had, but at the end of the day Su knew that if she was going to succeed then she'd have to attack the "problem" the way any good otaku would – she'd need to excommunicate the biggest Keitaro/Naru shipper of them all.

" _Sorry Mutsu… and good bye Tama. You were a valiant opponent."_

A plan started to form in Su's brain, but there was still one major hurdle – She couldn't predict how long Motoko would be "gone" if she made a change as massive as the one she was anticipating. If the change was large, but didn't completely reset the timeline, then Su would be faced with the prospect of having a living, breathing, Motoko as a "fish" in her basement for the foreseeable future.

" _Damn I wish I had figured out a way to measure the chronal-shift properly."_

Even if the changes to the time stream didn't keep Motoko under for an extended period of time, there was still question as to how Su was going to manage to co-ordinate a change an event as large as the one she was anticipating. The machine she had built, while impressive by any stretch of the imagination, still had several key limitations, the chief one being that it was impossible to extend the duration that someone could stay in the past.

Or was it…

Maybe there was something she could do, something to give Motoko a better chance of success, but even then, how could Su be sure that they were heading in the right direction?

One of the primary hurdles involved with their attempts to rewrite the past was the necessary frequent visits back in time and the inevitable alterations of the time streams that accompanied them. Su hadn't mentioned it to Motoko, but she was deathly afraid that the kendo girl would inadvertently do something in the past that would make it so that Su wouldn't ever build the time machine device in the first place.

Su was pondering the complexities of time travel paradoxes when out of the blue she had a promising idea.

" _If I can't measure the chronal-shift, then maybe I can just measure Keitaros! Where did I put that…"_

A half an hour later Su sat amidst the rubble of several emptied desks and cabinets with a look of glee on her face. Held in her hand was a device that she hadn't had cause to use for years. With a solemn movement she switched it on and watched it come to life – or at least, it turned on. Sadly, that's all this particular device did these days as there were no longer any Keitaro's to track.

Still… with a little modification and some temporal shielding….

LH-LH-LH

Motoko finished off the last few bites of her breakfast. Su had given her the last few days "off" from time-traveling by claiming that she had to make some adjustments to the vast labyrinth of electronics in the basement and as such Motoko had not been left with much to do other than read and reminiscence about her time at Hinata-sou, and especially her past with one brown haired manager.

" _I wonder if I always missed him this badly, or if this is the result of my tampering?"_

It was a curious question and the kind that had no realistic answer. Not that it mattered much, Motoko was already so deeply in love with Keitaro that she admitted to herself that if there had been a "point of no return" she would have passed it a hundred thousand miles ago. In fact, if it hadn't been for that damnable promise and her sister showing up to physically restrain her on Keitaro's wedding day, many things might have gone a hell of a lot different.

" _Why did I step aside? Was it because I really believed it was fate, or was it because I just didn't want to kill myself if he still chose Naru over me?"_

Motoko sighed. She had always been a coward when it came to _that_ particular fight.

"You don't look so good Motoko-chan, what's the problem?" It was her sister. Tsuruko who had just entered the room in search of her own breakfast.

"Just thinking about the past… anyway, forget about it. What's done is done."

" _At least, for now"_ added Motoko to herself. She hadn't told Tsuruko the real reason for leave of absence and current sabbatical in Molmol and likely never would. Still, she was glad for her company, even if they did have the inevitable argument about Motoko's return to Kyoto.

The elder Aoyama sister shrugged her shoulders and took a seat at the table. There was a fairly nice spread still laid out and considering that Kaolla Su had yet to make an appearance that morning, most of it was still present in an undigested state. Tsuruko took her time to examine the wide variety of Molmolian delicacies in front of her, choosing only the most interesting and fragrant pastries to place on her plate. Motoko noticed the stack approaching nearly Kaollian standards in terms of pure size and chuckled.

"Hungry this morning nee-san?" she asked as she pushed away her own plate.

Tsuruko muttered something rude under her breath. "My hormone medication is making me grumpy. I find sweets help. Also, I am old so leave me alone."

Motoko smirked at her sister. Tsuruko might be "old" but except for a few grey hairs and a slightly more rounded figure she looked very much like a woman a decade or two younger. Motoko reasoned this might just be a family trait of the Aoyama women in general and not one she was inclined to complain about or even mention in front of other women lest they strike her down. Some things were just better left observed than said.

Tsuruko placed a pastry in her mouth and chewed. It was sticky, sweet, and reminded her of figs or dates.

"You know it's strange. It's been over two years and I still feel empty. I wonder if it will ever seem normal to me."

This caught Motoko's attention. Her sister didn't often talk about this.

"I'm just happy you're alive nee-san," she said with all seriousness.

Tsuruko smiled in an attempt to lighten the mood.

"Ah, just ignore me," she stated with a grin. "Still, you have to admit, it's pretty amazing that you managed to even know anything was wrong. I'm lucky I just lost my ovaries and not my life."

Motoko agreed with her sister. It _was_ pretty amazing, a lot more than Tsuruko could ever guess.

LH-LH-LH

"Su, are you sure about this?"

Motoko looked down at the list of "events" in front of her and frowned. Some of them made sense, but many of them seemed more than a little implausible.

"It's like I said, we need to make a bunch of tiny changes first before we can make a big change."

Motoko stared at the list one more time and picked out something, seemingly at random.

"Like… buying a beef bowl? Are you serious?" she asked incredulously.

Su nodded emphatically. "Actually, the beef bowl might not be that important, but that's kind of the point. It's tiny things that will provide some insulation from the big things and make it less of a shock to the system."

Motoko puffed out her cheeks and swore. She understood what Su was trying to say and she shared her concern. The idea of floating in a deprivation tank for a couple of years because she made a massive change to the time steam was about as good of a nightmare as she could have without the involvement of evil turtle demons.

"So what's this all leading up to?" Motoko asked.

"Hmm. I wonder if I should tell you," said Su as she scratched the top of her head.

"Su!" complained Motoko.

"I'm kidding! Sheesh – It's really not that dramatic. You remember when Keitaro ran away after his exam failure that year?"

Motoko nodded. She had spent a large portion of that time bumming around with Kitsune as they tried to track down Keitaro and Naru. It hadn't gone very well.

"Well, I happen to have figured out which train Keitaro took out of Hina City."

Motoko's eyes blazed at this pronouncement. You could almost see the indecisiveness that had been present just moments before pull back like the outgoing tide.

"That's great Su! That means that I can go on that trip with Keitaro instead of Naru, right?" she asked.

Su nodded, "That's right – Well, there's a little more to it than that, we'll also be sending Naru away in another direction hopefully. But before we can get to that, you'll have to make some smaller changes just to smooth everything out."

Su didn't mention who else Keitaro wouldn't be spending that trip with. Hopefully Motoko wouldn't figure it out on her own.

"Anyway, let's get started," chirped Su as she turned around and began to run the diagnostics on the time travel contraption. Motoko took another look at the list and wondered how many days of her present life it would take to get through was amounted to just minutes of memories.

LH-LH-LH

" _Is this love?"_

It was a question that 15 year old Aoyama Motoko had asked herself countless times over the last few days and without much success.

Motoko Aoyama was a woman who felt that she knew what direction her life was always heading in and she revelled in the certainty of her black and white view of the world, but ever since that _man_ showed up on their doorstep everything she thought she knew was suddenly and irrevocably thrown into question.

Were all men scum and perverts? Maybe not. Did she want to dedicate her life solely to the sword? Maybe not. Did she want to eschew feminine things and womanhood to follow the path of bushido? Maybe not.

For someone who hated indecisiveness, Motoko found herself relying quite heavily on the concept of "Maybe" and the phrase, "I'm not sure." It was maddening. It was frustrating and it was, she surmised, entirely the fault of one Keitaro Urashima.

"Oh I hate that man!" she snarled at no one in particular as she rolled lazily over on her futon.

To anyone listening such a declaration would have been not only completely ordinary (expected even) but quite convincing. However, as soon as Motoko had said those words she knew that they were utterly false.

" _I think it's love."_

There was a tap on her door and a gentle voice called out, "Motoko-chan, you didn't come down for dinner, are you feeling okay?"

" _It's him!"_

Instantly Motoko stopped her fidgeting and laid still in her futon as a wave of butterflies decided to take the opportunity to swarm their way through her stomach. She started to stammer something, anything to send him away, but as soon as she opened her mouth she said the most peculiar thing.

"I think I have a fever Keitaro-san, could you bring me some medicine or food?" she said a little weaker than perhaps she was actually feeling.

There was a short silence before Keitaro spoke again, "I'll be right back."

" _Oh why did I say that! Whenever this male is around it's like I lose control over my mouth!"_

LH-LH-LH

Keitaro hadn't returned as quickly as Motoko had feared (hoped). It turned out that there wasn't a single drop of cold medicine or a tablet to be found in the Hinata-sou, so he had run as fast as he could to the nearest pharmacy to find some for her. She didn't know if she should be impressed at his kindness or chagrined at her unusual demand of assistance from him.

However, the most surprising thing was how when he entered her room bearing the medicine and a bowl of miso soup that not only did she not ask him to leave right away, but when she opened her mouth she said something she knew wasn't true.

"I'm feeling a little weak; could you help me with the soup?"

What ensued was a serious amount of blushing as Keitaro fed Motoko her dinner. Her eyes had watered wistfully as their gazes had locked and she had shyly blushed at the awkwardly sweet man in ways that she felt shameful about. Even now, hours later, as she lay awake in bed she wondered why she felt compelled to go through with such a humiliating charade.

" _Well, humiliating is a little strong…_ "

Motoko grumbled to herself as she tried fruitlessly to get to sleep, never aware that she had unwittingly participated in a carefully crafted _"Moe-Attack"_ researched and designed by the Molmolian School of Cultural Studies and Human Psychology.

LH-LH-LH

"What fortune did you get Keitaro-san?"

Motoko was asking more out of kindness than anything else. It was quite apparent that whatever fortune the hapless Keitaro had pulled was true to his form, entirely terrible. Keitaro simply held out the paper to her and confirmed this as fact.

"Cursed!" she exclaimed.

" _Who draws a cursed o-mikuji at a shrine these days?"_

Without hesitating she grabbed Keitaro's arm and dragged him away from the shrine. Some of the other girls had noticed their departure, so she merely dragged him along faster.

"W-w-where are we going Motoko-chan?" the luckless manager asked.

"We're going to get rid of this terrible fortune!" she declared as they stopped in front of a large pine tree. Keitaro noticed that many fortunes with similarly ill tidings were tied to the various branches.

"All of the lower branches are taken… Keitaro, let me sit on your shoulders," she demanded.

Keitaro looked uncertain, but he gave in and Motoko climbed up his back. Together they shambled closer to the tree and Motoko tied Keitaro's horrific fortune to an upper branch.

"There," she said as she was lowered back to the ground, "Now the bad luck will stick here and not follow you around."

Keitaro smiled awkwardly, "Thanks Motoko. You really didn't have to do that…"

Motoko felt her face fall a little bit.

" _I was just trying to be nice to you!"_

"But I really appreciate it. It seems like these days you're the only one supporting me."

" _Instant reversal! Good job Keitaro!"_ she chuckled to herself as she gave him her brightest smile.

Suddenly she remembered something. Reaching inside her purse she pulled out a small wooden plaque and handed it to Keitaro. She had bought it on a strange whim just the other day and truthfully she felt that she'd be too embarrassed to just outright give it to him, but she had been carrying it around with her just in case she had worked up the courage. Now it seemed the time was right.

"What is…?"

"It's an _ema_ – See, it's for good luck with exams. I carved your name into it," she said.

Keitaro's eyes widened as he looked from the _ema_ to Motoko and then back again. No one ever, not even his family, had done something like this for him before.

"T-t-thank you Motoko-chan!" he exclaimed with heartfelt sincerity. It was, quite frankly, the best Keitaro had felt since failing his practice exams just days before.

Motoko was blushing furiously and opened her mouth to say something to cover for her obvious shyness. Instead she said and did something utterly amazing.

"I believe in you Keitaro-san," she said as she leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.

Keitaro's smile, already broad, practically lit up the dreary winter sky.

LH-LH-LH

Motoko paced back and forth outside of the managers apartment and wondering what the hell she had been thinking. There were many things that she was good at, even excelled at. Martial arts happened to be her forte, but she was also good at traditional Japanese ceremonies, history, calligraphy and if pressed she would admit more than a passing familiarity with flower arrangement.

None of which explained why she had spent the entire previous evening creating the abomination of "chocolates" in her hands and why she was currently debating if she should give them to Keitaro or set them on fire.

" _These are terrible! I should have just bought some! What was I thinking?!"_

In fact, she had no idea what she was thinking. She had always thought that "Valentine's Day" was simply a manufactured and entirely misogynistic "holiday" designed to make women subservient to the affections of men. In light of that, no one was as shocked as her as when she found herself at the cash register of the local grocery armed with a multitude of sweets, sugar, chocolate bricks and other sundry baking supplies. The fact that she then continued to pay for them and exit the store was still one of the universes greatest mysteries.

Unfortunately for Motoko she wasn't the kind of woman to leave something half-done. Once she had obtained the necessary supplies she reasoned she might as well go through and make the attempt regardless of the fact that she had no idea what she was doing. In fact, it was almost odd – but every time she felt herself start to waver in her commitment to her foray into the culinary arts, it was like some part of her welled up with emotion.

" _This is your chance to show him how you feel."_

Motoko Aoyama had long given up on denying that she was in love with Keitaro Urashima and in fact, among all the girls at Hinata-sou, only the younger Shinobu Maehara was more brazen in her devotion to her "senpai". It was so bad that Kitsune had recently taken to calling Keitaro "Lolicon-san" to his face, much to the chagrin of himself, Shinobu and of course Motoko - Su had merely asked if "Lolicons are tasty" which had such an uncomfortable connotation that everyone was forced to remain silent and looked queasy.

That being said, despite the obvious age difference, Motoko knew that unlike Shinobu, she actually had _breasts,_ which in her mind meant that she also had a chance to be viewed as a woman, even if technically she was still a year too young for him. The fact that she had even bothered to research what the age of consent laws were in their prefecture was startling enough and not something that she liked to dwell on.

It was in this tumultuous state of mind that Motoko now found herself faced with her greatest challenge to date – deliberately showing a _male_ that she liked him, in _that way_. She was just about to turn heel and run back to her room when she felt an odd compulsion to stop, almost as if her mind was telling her, _"Just do it already!"_ With movements that belied the tempest stirring in her heart, she softly rapped on the frame of Keitaro's door.

"Come in," came the voice that always sent her stomach into flutters.

Without wasting a moment, Motoko slid back the door and entered the room. Keitaro was at his usual place, a book open and studying. He looked up and smiled at Motoko.

"K-Keitaro-san…." she fumbled over the words. Where was the courage that she had just moments ago?

Keitaro looked up expectantly at Motoko and then down at the box in her hands. His smile widened.

" _Great, now he KNOWS what I am up to. Might as well get this over with so I can cry myself to sleep tonight like a pathetic little girl."_

"I… I… Um… I…" Motoko's control over her speech was failing miserably. Thankfully Keitaro covered for her.

"You want to give those to me?" he asked with Motoko assumed was sincere surprise.

Motoko abruptly nodded her head and pushed the box into Keitaro's hands. Her face turned an interesting shade of red as she looked intently at her feet.

Keitaro placed the box on his _kotatsu_ and removed the lid, revealing Motoko's hand crafted and misshapen monstrosities for the entire world to see. Thankfully she noted that if Keitaro was repulsed, he didn't let it show.

"Thank you for the chocolate Motoko-chan, these looks good. Did you make them yourself?"

Motoko nodded furiously, her long pony tail swishing back and forth.

"I… I… stayed up all night…" she blushed.

Keitaro picked up one of the chocolates and inspected it. Secretly, he thought it looked dangerous, but he wasn't about to let Motoko know that. He had seen her in the kitchen and knew that she had worked all night to make these chocolates for him. Given her limited abilities in this area as well as his own experience in making deserts he acknowledged that it was no small feat for her to attempt something like this. Even if they were terrible, he reasoned that the effort alone was representative of her true feelings and it made his heart feel warm.

With much aplomb, Keitaro placed the chocolate in his mouth and tried to smile with a closed mouth as he chewed. Truthfully, despite how they looked, they actually weren't bad at all. A part of his mind thought that maybe they tasted just a little bit better than they should have because they were from Motoko and he wondered if that meant he also had feelings for her.

"These are really good Motoko-chan!" he said.

Motoko's eyes bugged out. She had been expecting a variety of responses ranging from indifference to uncontrollable vomiting, but nothing had prepared her for anything remotely resembling the neighbourhood of "good". Hell, she would have settled for a mild look of displeasure and called it a victory – this, this was wild success!

"Really?" she asked, the amazement in her voice was clear. She actually stepped forward to try and get at one of the chocolates to try it for herself, but Keitaro swiped the box from her.

"Hey, these are for me!" he joked at her.

Motoko quickly regained control and blushed anew, "S-sorry," she muttered.

Keitaro began laughing and after a moment Motoko joined him. It felt like a relief and the tension slowly left her body.

" _This might be the greatest day of my life,"_ thought two separate people, but not entirely for separate reasons.

LH-LH-LH

"I think I'll come home to visit this month."

Motoko had no reason why she said that. Despite this fact, her mouth continued on its own.

"Hmm. Maybe on the 11th. Can you come meet me at the train station?"

There was a small moment of silence on the other end of the line and then her sister answered in the affirmative.

As Motoko hung up the phone she idly realized that this was the day after Keitaro and Naru should get their exam results.

LH-LH-LH

Motoko had stopped by the travel agency earlier in the day. She had been overcome by a whim to check out local vacation destinations and had left armed with a wide variety of pamphlets.

"Going on a trip?" came a voice from behind her. Turning around, Motoko realized that Kitsune and Naru had entered the room.

Naru and her hadn't been on good speaking terms recently, but she managed to push down the instinct that told her say something snide.

"I'm not sure. I guess I just wanted to see what was out there…" she looked at the brochures in her hands. They were all for relatively remote areas of Japan. She didn't know why she did it, but the next thing she knew she was putting them into Naru's hands and saying, "Here – maybe you can have a look."

Rather abruptly, Motoko turned around and marched off towards her room, leaving behind two slightly bemused Hinata residents and the beginnings of a subliminal message that would send Naru Narusegawa off in a direction that would be far away from one particular ronin-manager.

LH-LH-LH

She had bought her ticket to Kyoto two days early and without any sort of explanation other than she happened to be close to the ticket booth at the time. That alone wasn't strange, she was often by the ticket booth in the train station as she travelled by it several times a week on her way to and from school.

No, what was strange was the fact that she had asked for a very specific time and seat.

" _I wonder why I did that? Maybe just a whim?"_

LH-LH-LH

No one had seen Keitaro or Naru that morning. News had spread around the Hinata that Keitaro had failed his exam again and Motoko was disappointed and upset. She had felt for sure that Keitaro would get into Todai, especially after all the hard work he had put in, but perhaps more worrisome was the fact that he had up and left without even saying a proper goodbye to her.

Motoko sighed as the approached the train platform. It wasn't like her and Keitaro were a couple, they were just friends after all. She supposed that it would probably be uncharitable of her to hold such imagined slights against him.

At least, until they confessed to each other.

Motoko nodded sagely at her own advice and complimented herself on her maturity as she approached the incoming train. Taking another look at her ticket, she navigated to the correct carriage and then looked around for her seat. The train didn't look like it would be too crowded today, so she hoped she wouldn't have to sit next to some pervert that would ogle her for the entire journey. She was just about to finish stowing away her luggage when she felt a hand graze her hip. Instinctively she went for _Shisui_ , only to realize that she wasn't armed. Not to be cowed, she turned her head with a grimace and prepared to strike whatever man would dare molest her on public transport.

It was, of course, a great surprise that she instead of some random pervert she came face to face with a particular pervert - the one man she actually _did_ want to see.

"Keitaro!" she gasped, completely overcome with this sudden turn of events.

"H-Hi, M-Motoko-chan," stuttered Keitaro. Slightly recovering his composure, he then added, "Are you going on a trip as well?"

Motoko was almost too stunned to reply, but somehow she found herself smoothly moving into the seat. She noticed it was next to Keitaro's.

"I'm going to visit my family in Kyoto. Where are you going Keitaro-san?" she asked in a voice that was all too calm for how she was really feeling.

Keitaro made an awkward chuckle and then sat down next to the kendo girl. "I'm actually heading the same way, but not to visit family you know. I just need… some time to myself I guess."

"Keitaro-san, is this about your exam?" she asked with sincerity. Without noticing it she had reached out her hands to take Keitaro's in her own.

Keitaro looked down at the soft eyes staring at him and then at the hands holding his and he started to panic. Motoko was a resident, and a minor. Sure, with a body like hers, you'd be hard to argue that she wasn't _mature_ , but Keitaro felt somewhat honor bound by virtue of being the manager of the Hinata to not take advantage of his tenants.

"M-M-Motoko!" he sputtered.

Motoko smile at Keitaro and said, "What? Don't worry! I'm not going to hit you!" For some reason she laughed in a way that was lighter than those words made her feel.

Keitaro returned the smile and added his own shy laugh, "No, no, I know. You're not Narusegawa-san."

" _Damn right I'm not._ "

" _Whoa? Where did that come from?"_

"I'm sorry you didn't pass your exam this time Keitaro-san. I'm certain you'll get it on the next try," she said. Strangely, she actually _did_ feel certain about it.

Surprisingly, instead of his usual smile, Keitaro frowned slightly at Motoko's vote of confidence in him.

"I don't know Motoko-chan, I'm starting to wonder if I should give up or not."

"You won't give up," Motoko stated matter-of-factly.

Keitaro was about offer some lame counter argument, but he found himself falling silent when he looked into Motoko's eyes. He couldn't explain it, but there was something there – a sense of certainty that made his urge to object dissipate.

"After all," Motoko continued, "Keitaro-san isn't a quitter."

LH-LH-LH

Motoko stared out the train window as Keitaro dozed next to her. Despite opening strong, she had found her sudden burst of courage deserting her and within minutes had reverted back to her normal awkward method of speaking – or to be succinct, _not speaking_.

" _How come sometimes I am so at ease around Keitaro and then other times I am a complete baka?"_

Motoko felt Keitaro starting to stir and she turned her head to look at the older boy. Without warning she was overcome with a childish impulse.

" _This is a chance!"_ she thought as she twisted her body and leaned against Keitaro's shoulder, shutting her eyes tightly.

Keitaro still stirred, but as he went to move his arms he found that one of them was currently being used by the young, and in Keitaro's opinion, stunningly beautiful, Motoko Aoyama.

" _Wow, she's even cuter when she's asleep,"_ thought Keitaro.

" _I wonder how we look to other people. Do they think we're a couple?"_ they both thought nearly simultaneously.

For some reason she couldn't explain, Motoko took this moment to escalate the situation.

"Mmm… Kei-kun," she growled in a low, throaty voice. Motoko was honestly surprised at not only how erotic it sounded, but that she was even capable of making a noise that sounded more sexy than scary.

" _What's come over me? This is shameless, I should stop before I lower myself any more._ "

Motoko was just about to fake "waking-up" when Keitaro shifted in his seat, leaning a little bit more into her and raising her head closer to his face. She could feel his warm breath on her ear as he softly whispered her name. Somehow, like a heat seeking missile, he had managed to zero in on her erotic weakness and caused her to involuntarily moan.

" _I can be a little more shameless,"_ she thought to herself as she snuggled in deeper with the boy next to her.

LH-LH-LH

Motoko had perhaps let her little charade carry on longer than she should have, but in the end it appeared that Keitaro hadn't minded her commandeering of his arm _too much_. The rest of the train ride, other than some light and slightly bashful conversation, was otherwise uneventful and eventually they reached their destination.

Keitaro was just helping Motoko carry her bags off the train when she heard a familiar voice call out for her, "Motoko-han! Over here!"

Keitaro turned his head to follow Motoko's and he gasped in surprise. Before him stood a woman, apparently just a few years older than him, who looked like a veritable clone of the young girl next to him, right down to the their taste in clothing. In fact, if it wasn't for the more adult features and amazing golden crane perched on her shoulders, Keitaro might have thought it _was_ Motoko.

" _Is this her mother?"_

"Ah, hello Onee-san," greeted Motoko as she gave her sister a small bow.

" _Oh, sister! Wow, I wonder if all the women in Motoko's family are so gorgeous…"_

Tsuruko had taken the time to gracefully approach the duo as the stood on the train platform. Gently she embraced her sister and then turned her head to Keitaro.

"And who is your traveling companion?" she asked with a small smile. It was nice, but not all together warm.

Motoko cleared her throat and then gestured to Keitaro, "Urashima Keitaro-san. Manager and owner of Hinata-sou."

Tsuruko and Keitaro exchanged bows and greetings, then the elder Aoyama turned back to her sister and spoke, "I wasn't aware that you were bringing a…" Tsuruko wanted to say "man", but decided to carefully choose her words, "…guest with you on this trip."

Keitaro looked flustered and waved his hands, "No, it's not like that – we just happened to be traveling in the same direction!"

Tsuruko raised her eye and gave the duo a suspicious look. For as long as she had known her sister, which was of course, Motoko's entire life, she had _never_ seen her so comfortable with a man other than their father. From Tsuruko's perspective this was a new and interesting circumstance that bore some investigation. Quickly, she made up her mind on what to do next.

"You must be tired after such a long journey Urashima-san, where are you staying in our fine city?" she asked as sweetly as she could muster.

Keitaro scratched the back of his head and looked foolish. Truthfully, he hadn't really made that much of a plan. There was always the possibility of him staying with his family, the Urashima's after all were from Koyoto. However, his initial goal was more along the lines of simply getting away from the Hinata-sou and after his argument with Naru, her as well.

"I hadn't actually made any plans; I thought I'd just wander a bit…"

Tsuruko's face lit up and she eagerly clapped him on the shoulder. "Ah, a wandering spirit! Still, even a wanderer needs some rest. Come join us for the evening meal."

She looked over at her sister and grinned as evilly as she could muster.

"I'm sure Motoko-han would _love_ to entertain you."

Keitaro looked awkwardly at Motoko, but the high school girl merely flushed and stared straight at her feet. If you narrowed your eyes and looked from the right angle, you might have been able to see the steam coming out of her ears.

Keitaro, being himself, naturally tried to cover for Motoko in her moment of distress.

"Maybe some other time Aoyoma-san…"

"It's okay."

It was a small voice. Unexpectedly it came from Motoko.

"I'd l-l-like it if we could have d-d-d-dinner together Keitaro-san." Immediately upon finishing the statement she seemed to deflate one or two sizes. The strain of overcoming her natural shyness, especially in front of her sister, was simply just too much for her immature heart.

Still, she marvelled that she had managed to say it at all. She had almost gotten used to her "emotional outbursts" or the rare moments of courage that seemed to arise whenever she was with Keitaro. In fact, she had half been expecting to lose control of her mouth and boldly declare a saucy invitation of her own by way of Tsuruko's semi-scandalous lead-in. However as the seconds ticked by and she realized that all she was likely to accomplish was either fainting or staring a hole through her shoes, she decided she couldn't afford to wait any longer to get brave.

No, if she wanted this – wanted this boy, then she was going to have show some spine, even if it meant humiliating herself in front of Tsuruko.

" _God help me, onee-san will never let me hear the end of this."_

LH-LH-LH

Su looked at the status indicators and readouts attached to the deprivation tank. The news wasn't good. Thankfully Motoko was still holding up, likely due to her excellent physical condition, but there were limits – even for someone like her, and Su was fairly certain that her friend was going to push right up to those limits and then beyond.

It was unfortunate, but unavoidable. The complexities of the events that needed to be managed on the Kyoto trip were just too large to be tackled as a series of small jumps. Su had explained this to Motoko and they had discussed the likely outcome and risks. They had even re-evaluated the "Shotgun Wedding" scenario and while Su was confident that "young Motoko" wouldn't do anything foolish if she was forced into a marriage with Keitaro by her sister, the Keitaro side of the equation was less certain.

No, the Kyoto trip was still the best scenario to play out to completion. There wasn't much more that Su could do right now than to wait and monitor. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her now "improved" Keitaro-tracker and looked at the display. Sadly, it was still blank, but Su had hope…

Now, it was just up to Motoko.

LH-LH-LH

Keitaro finished folding his clothes as he marvelled at the size and modernity of the bathroom he was in. Initially when he had agreed to travel to Motoko's home he had imagined some high mountain monastery guarded by dozens of elite warriors with a look more out of a shounen adventure manga. He was quite surprised when Tsuruko's car pulled up through the gate of a nicely appointed upper-middle class house in a rather gentrified part of Kyoto. Heck, he still couldn't believe that Tsuruko had a car.

" _I always thought that Motoko was some sort of samurai princess, but really – that only happens in bad movies and manga."_

Over dinner Keitaro had learned that the actual family dojo was in another part of Kyoto that still housed the elder members of the Aoyama clan, but most of the family, Tsuruko included, lived in various normal houses around town and pursued completely mundane careers. Tsuruko's husband hadn't been present this evening, and Keitaro did notice a look of relief on Motoko's face when her sister had announced this would be the case, but Keitaro understood that he was some sort of government civil servant. It was all… so exceedingly normal and he couldn't help but be a tad disappointed by it. At least Tsuruko's pet crane Shippu somewhat lived up to the mystique.

" _And they have a really nice bathroom. This is way better than my tub back at the Hinata."_

Keitaro sat down on a small wooden stool and was about to begin his normal cleaning ritual, when he heard a rap on the door.

"Keitaro-san…"

He froze, the voice was obviously Motoko.

"Uh… yes?" he said, his voice cracking in a completely unmanly way.

"Can I come in and wash your back?"

Keitaro gasped. Scenes from various manga, animes and eroge games blurred through his mind and his heart leapt into his chest. This was something, an opportunity, that he had never imagined would ever happen to him. Even in his most perverted fantasies he barely accepted the fact that a woman might like him, let alone perform the fated romantic "I'll wash your back darling" maneuver. It took every ounce of willpower he had to keep from screaming at the top of his lungs like a madman.

"YES."

Keitaro turned away and he heard Motoko enter the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

"I just thought that this might be…."

Keitaro instinctively turned to face Motoko when she addressed him only to start panicking in mid head-swivel. He was prepared for a scream, or a slap, or even a very disappointed "Keitaro you baka!" but instead he was greeted with the dazzling figure of one Motoko Aoyama sporting what was obviously a middle schoolers standard issue bathing suit about two sizes too small for her.

"M-M-M-Motoko!" he sputtered, his eyes bulging out of his head at the erotic sight before him.

Motoko turned her head shyly and clutched the basket of toiletries she was holding to her ample bosom.

"Nyah~ Don't stare~" she squealed in a tone and pitch she didn't realize she knew how to make.

Keitaro covered his eyes only to hear the soft sound of Motoko's laugh.

"I'm just teasing you Keitaro-san!" she giggled as she walked over and sat behind him. "What did you think this was, some sort of ero-anime?"

Keitaro could only rub his eyes and laugh along because yes, indeed, that was exactly what he had thought it was.

"It's embarrassing, but this is the only swimsuit I could find. I don't stay here often." Motoko wasn't as innocent as she claimed to be, she knew that the suit was far too small to look decent on her. It was entirely the point and she hoped, not lost on Keitaro.

"You look incredible Motoko-chan!" He instantly felt that maybe he had sounded a little pervy in his eagerness, but if he did then Motoko didn't appear to mind. For about the hundredth time that day, Keitaro was glad that Motoko wasn't as prone to fits of violence as Narusegawa was.

Motoko leaned over to fetch a washcloth, giving Keitaro a premier view of her generous bust. It was almost too much for him to handle and he shook his head with a sigh.

"What's wrong Keitaro-san?" asked Motoko as she went to lather up a bar of soap.

"I was just thinking that maybe Konno-san is right and I am a 'Lolicon-san' after all," he grumbled.

Motoko playfully swatted Keitaro and then proceeded to lather up his shoulders with soap.

"So long as it's me and not Su or Shinobu, then I think you will be fine," she joked.

"Unless you're saying that I look like a little girl?" she added with a playful hint of anger in her voice.

Keitaro strenuously shook his head side to side. "Nope, no way! Absolutely not!"

Motoko smiled to herself. She had been afraid that the age difference between her and Keitaro was a barrier between them getting closer, so she was pleased to hear this answer from the shy ronin.

"Lean forward please~" she asked in a lilting voice.

Keitaro did as instructed. "Why the fantastic service?" he ventured as Motoko began scrubbing his lower back in earnest.

"Hmm… I wonder," replied Motoko. Keitaro couldn't help but notice that the kendo girl was being even more coy than usual. He wasn't dumb enough to not understand the subtext of her evasions.

"Hey, Keitaro-san… do you remember when you were telling me about that promise you made? What was it actually?"

" _It's stupid, that's what it is,"_ thought Motoko with a hint of bitter emotion. She had no idea where either the words or the feelings had come from.

"Ah well… you see, I made a promise to a girl when I was a kid to go to Todai with her," Keitaro responded in a sheepish tone. He realized that when a beautiful woman was scrubbing your back, you felt pretty silly talking about childhood crushes.

"Oh?" asked Motoko, "And why was that?"

Keitaro grimaced. "If two people love each other go to Todai together then they would have a happy life."

" _God this sounds dumb,"_ he thought to himself.

"Well, at least that's the rumor," he finally added.

Motoko worked the washcloth around Keitaro's back, taking care to put a lot of pressure on his shoulders. Keitaro seemed to lean into it and even give an involuntary groan.

"Keitaro-san, do you believe in fate?" she asked.

Keitaro gulped. He had spent the last 15 years of his life pretty much _only_ believing in fate.

"Y-y-yes…" he croaked.

Motoko took some warm water and rinsed off Keitaro's back.

"Me too," she said as she began to work some shampoo through Keitaro's wavy brown hair.

"Keitaro, I feel like fate has been drawing us together." She was serious about this. For months now Motoko had found herself doing the most outrageous things around this man, things that she never would have believed possible. Things that she never would have even _dared_ to imagine. If it wasn't fate guiding her actions, then she supposed that the next likely culprits would be either demonic possession or mind-control drugs.

Keitaro thought about this for a moment. It certainly seemed like Motoko and he had been spending an awful large amount of time together. Of course, it never occurred to Keitaro that this was mostly Motoko's doing. Still, on the whole, he'd be lying if he had said that his eyes and thoughts weren't constantly being drawn to the young beauty.

"I…" he stumbled over his words, "I… feel… something… Motoko"

The raven haired kendo-girl softly massaged Keitaro's scalp, her fingers tracing little swirls towards his ears. Keitaro squirmed a little bit and she moved her hands down over his shoulders and pulled him into an embrace from behind. The poor boy almost fainted when he realized that the softness on his back was Motoko's breasts pressing against him.

"Keitaro…" she whispered in his ear. "If I go to Todai with you, will we live happily ever after?"

" _Did she… just ask me if I was in love with her?"_

LH-LH-LH

"I'm telling you, someone has stolen my sister and replaced her with a clone." Tsuruko snickered in the phone. In truth she was only half joking. Her sister, for lack of a better word, was acting absolutely insane. Not necessarily bad, but more "mad" – as in bonkers, nuts and loopy. Or to put it neatly, Motoko Aoyama was acting like a sixteen year old girl.

Which of course, was completely _outrageous_.

"Oh come on now Ruko, we both know that she had to grow out of her 'I HATE BOYS' phase sooner or later. It just happened to be a little later than we had hoped…" Tsuruko's husband had been the unfortunate recipient of many of the younger Aoyama sibling's tirades over the years, so the news from his wife about Motoko's sudden change of heart was well received and hence he was feeling charitable.

"It's not just that, she's just more… 'girl-like' as well. You should have seen her playing with the twins today. She hugged them! Willingly! She even smiled and I swear I heard her coo at one."

It had been one of Tsuruko's many hopes that Motoko's "promotion" to official "Aunt" status last year would have helped her troubled sister finally start to come to grips with her own confused identity. Tsuruko had never tried to dissuade Motoko from following the sword or even to choose the life of a woman and mother as she had. It was just that as far as Tsuruko was concerned Motoko's slavish devotion to the dojo and utter rejection of all things female, including her own sexuality, was essentially robbing the girl of the very act of _choosing_. Tsuruko was no fool; she knew that when it came to life, you either chose, or had choices made for you.

At least now she had some hope that her sister would chose whatever was right for her.

"And you say she brought a boy home with her too?" her husband asked over the phone.

Tsuruko smiled. This was perhaps the most interesting development of all. She had to admit that the boy in question, as nice as he seemed, wasn't exactly the kind of man that she thought would ultimately thaw her sisters frozen heart. She had imagined that perhaps he'd be more… well, honestly – manly, or at least have a sword or two lying around. The irony of the inveterate "samurai girl" falling for a gentle natured three time "ronin" wasn't lost on Tsuruko.

"Yes, and it gets better," Tsuruko said with an impish grin on her face.

"I suggested, perhaps not too innocently, that after dinner she should offer to wash Keitaro-san's back for him." Tsuruko had expected her sister to scowl at her, or to toss back a pointed insult, or perhaps even to just blush furiously until her head spontaneously exploded. That would be the typical Motoko-like response after all. However…

"Did she challenge you to a duel on the spot?" her husband laughed.

Now it was Tsuruko's turn to snicker. "No – instead 10 minutes later I catch her walking down the hall with her bath kit and wearing her old middle school swimsuit."

The phone went silent for a long time.

"Wait… Motoko did this? Your sister Motoko? Ms. 'All Men are Scum' Aoyama?"

"That's what I'm saying!" screeched Tsuruko into the handset. "I'm about one more heartfelt gaze or shy blush away from fetching mother to perform an exorcism!"

LH-LH-LH

 _Beep-Beep-Beep-Boop_

Kaolla Su shot bolt upright in bed and rubbed her eyes in a futile attempt to banish her weariness.

"What? Moto…?" she muttered in a disoriented voice.

It was the middle of the night and Su had been having a bad dream – the kind that she hadn't had in a long time. Almost ironically the woman who had borne the brunt of Su's nightmares for years was close at hand, but completely indisposed – she was currently in a state of deep hibernation and hence, completely unavailable for some late night glomping.

Su was just about to roll over and go to back to sleep when she heard it again.

 _Beep-Beep-Beep-Boop_

Like one of her own heat-seeking missiles, Su launched herself off the side of the bed and to her night table, swooping up the small device that she had left there.

 _Beep-Beep-Beep-Boop_

" _Well how about that, this works!"_

Su looked at the readout on the device in her hands. Of course, it made absolutely no sense as there was no physical way that he could actually be located both here in the Molmolian palace as well as in Kyoto, or anywhere really for that matter considering that when Su checked her memory she still remembered him being dead. That only left one reasonable conclusion.

" _Motoko must be getting close."_

She only hoped that her friend's body would last long enough to finish the race. Su slowly crawled off the bed and reached for a robe. It was stupid-o-clock in the morning, but for some reason she just felt like she needed to check the machines again.

Also, if she couldn't glomp onto Motoko, then she could sure as hell stare at her until she fell asleep.

LH-LH-LH

Motoko didn't know if she should be skipping on cloud nine or panicking in terror. It had been three days since Keitaro and she had shared the train to Kyoto and much to her delight they had been spent almost entirely in each other's company. She had actually been amazed to find out that Keitaro's family, just like hers, also hailed the region and the two of them had spent countless hours dragging the other to and from various parts of the city that each held dear. Today's excursion was no exception, even if Motoko admitted that perhaps she was more ill at ease by the idea than she was willing to let on.

Today they were going to visit Keitaro's family.

It had started out innocently enough. Keitaro had mentioned over dinner that his family ran a sweet shop. Tsuruko, who had always had a sweet tooth, managed to connect the dots from one of her favorite treats directly to Keitaro's family and had tasked Motoko with procuring a box of _daifuku_ that Keitaro had so helpfully suggested his mother would be more than happy to supply.

So now, what was supposed to have been another day of gleefully traipsing around the city had turned into a deadly serious mission - Motoko was going to "meet the parents".

" _What if they don't like me? What if his mother doesn't think I am pretty enough? What if they think I am too young? Why can't I just fight a turtle demon instead?"_

"Keitaro-san, is my obi on straight?" she asked as she tried to observe her reflection in a passing shop mirror.

Keitaro just shook his head. This was approximately the fifth time on the way here that Motoko had asked that question. He'd answer it just as he had the previous four times.

"It's fine Motoko-chan. Really, you look gorgeous. You didn't have to get so dressed up just for this."

He meant ever word of it, except maybe the feigned indifference to how absolutely incredible she looked in a kimono. There weren't many women who could pull off such a formal fashion statement and make it look like every day wear, but Keitaro felt that Motoko was definitely the exception to that rule. The way her long hair with its traditional _hime_ style flowed casually over her shoulder was the perfect accompaniment to her light pink kimono. If Keitaro had his way, she'd never wear anything else.

Motoko smiled at Keitaro. He was being sweet but obviously he didn't understand how important it was to a woman to make a good impression on the people that she hoped would be her future in-laws.

" _Where did that thought come from? Do I want to marry Keitaro?"_

" _Yes!"_ The answer came back immediately and with such force that she was left wondering if she had another person screaming at her in her mind.

Motoko was about to explore these questions in more detail when her reverie was broken by a simple announcement.

"We're here."

Without thinking, Motoko grabbed Keitaro's arm in pure terror and rooted herself to the spot.

"I don't wanna," she said with a childlike pout.

Keitaro was overwhelmed by Motoko's absolute cuteness. _"How di d a baka like me end up hanging out with such a cute girl?"_

"It's okay Motoko-chan! It's just my parents… I'm sure they'll love you just as much as…"

Keitaro froze cold. Just a few more seconds and he would have been on the verge of making a huge mistake.

" _Is it really a huge mistake?"_ he asked himself.

" _What about your promise?"_ another, older part of himself asked.

Keitaro had been thinking a lot about his promise over the last couple of days, or at least, more seriously than he had in the past. For the longest time the promise had carried him through some of the most difficult moments in his life. It had been like a lighthouse in his soul, guiding him through the trials and tribulations of his adolescence – and what for?

" _So I could have the fantasy that someday I could fall in love with someone who would love me for me._ "

He noticed that Motoko was looking at him with an expectant expression. Part of him desperately wanted to answer that look, to say, "Yes, I love you" but something kept holding him back. He reasoned it was his own cowardice, after all he had spent a life time grasping for things only to have them pulled out of his reach. This was dangerous. Dangerous because unlike his mythical "promise girl" who existed mostly as just an ideal, Motoko was a real woman who seemed to care for him. He could, and likely would, screw this up.

He could fail a hundred exams, but there was just one Motoko and he didn't want to lose her.

" _That's love you dumbass."_

"Keitaro? What's wrong?"

He shook his head slowly. "Nothing, just… I think I understand how you feel finally."

Motoko gave a small laugh. "You're nervous too? It's strange, it's not like we're… you know… together, I guess."

The words came out somewhat sadder and more wistful than Motoko had intended. She suspected her recent roller-coaster of emotions had somewhat loosened her control, at least around Keitaro.

Keitaro inwardly winced. For some reason that declaration of "not togetherness" stung. Maybe it was the sad way that Motoko had said those words; it had made him feel almost as if he had wronged her and perhaps he had. He wasn't an idiot, she had told him in a hundred different ways and a hundred different times that she cared for him and he hadn't had the courage once to return her feelings.

He swore it was time he changed that.

Keitaro closed his eyes and tried to steady his nerve. The world seemed to close around the two young would-be lovers and Keitaro could feel his heart leap into his throat. Motoko held on tight to his arm and waited, watching his lips move and wondering if this was the moment she had been waiting for.

"KEI-KUN!"

Like a rubber-band snapping back into shape, the intimacy that had wrapped the pair moments ago was stripped by the loud and boisterous interjection from a stout middle-aged woman with a broad grin who was hailing them from the shop door.

"Okaasan?" gasped Keitaro, his brain barely comprehending how his mother had likely ruined one of the most important moments in his life.

The elder Urashima woman came forward and embraced her wayward son. "Why didn't you tell us you were coming?"

"What? I did! I called you this morning!" Keitaro sputtered, trying to escape his mother's overbearing affections.

"Oh and who's this young beauty? Did you get married Kei?" Keitaro's mother was grinning broadly now, taking obvious delight in her son's discomfort.

"Hello Urashima-san, I am Aoyoma Motoko, a resident under your sons care at Hinata-sou. It is a pleasure to meet you." Motoko bowed elegantly, further enhancing her image as a lady of refinement.

"Oh, I could cry!" gasped Mrs. Urashima as she held her hand up against her chest and made an over-exaggerated fanning motion to her face. "After 20 long years my hapless son has finally found spring!"

"MOTHER!" growled Keitaro, only to be met with the musical tones of laughter from Motoko. Still, his mother despite all her jokes had made an astute observation. If Keitaro's luckless life could be defined as a harsh winter of struggle, then just maybe the woman next to him was the promise of a warm spring.

LH-LH-LH

Su hung up the phone and wiped her damp eyes with her sleeve. Tsuruko had called looking for Motoko, but unfortunately Su had to lie and claim to not know where she was.

" _Motoko…I wish there was some way to get a message to you in there._ "

It was perhaps a flaw in the design that Su hadn't anticipated. Of course, she hadn't anticipated that anyone would spend three weeks inside the machine either, or that the process would be impossible to stop once it had gone on for too long. People may have called Su a genius, but she was fairly convinced right now that she was mostly an idiot.

An idiot that couldn't tell her best friend that her sister was dying.

Tsuruko's cancer, previously thought defeated, had come back with a vengeance. Evidently it had made the jump to her lymph nodes and was at an incurable stage. With no idea of how much time she reasonably had left, she had been desperately searching for Motoko, hoping for one last reunion with her beloved sister.

" _Damn tears are coming back now._ "

Su pinched her nose and tried to ignore the fact that it was quite possible that she had killed Motoko and that neither Aoyama sister would see the other before they died.

LH-LH-LH

"I almost don't want to go back to Hinata City," declared Keitaro as he sat on the wooden deck behind Tsuruko's house.

He and Motoko had returned from his parents shop earlier in the evening after sharing a meal that was of suspiciously higher calibre than Keitaro's mother usually provided. He suspected that this must in some way signal that she had "approved" of Motoko because under normal circumstances she could barely be bothered to burn water for their meals.

Silently, Motoko sat down next to him with her legs under her. Keitaro gazed at her in the fading light of dusk, marvelling at how in this position she looked every inch the _Yamato Nadeshiko_ , or idealized Japanese woman.

" _Beautiful, elegant, refined and with a spine of steel. I must be crazy for even attempting this… "_

"I know what you mean," agreed Motoko. "I didn't intend for it, but this was almost like a three day long date. I don't want it to end."

Keitaro blushed. He had been thinking thoughts very much along similar lines. Normally when the two of them were at the Hinata, there was so much going on with the other residents that it felt like they barely had time to say two words to each other. Obviously Keitaro was dedicated to his studies and Motoko herself had an enormous dedication to not only her school work but her kendo, so moments where they were alone and capable of being this… _intimate_ , were few and far between.

"Let's not end it then," declared Keitaro. Motoko turned her head to him, obviously intrigued.

"Motoko-chan…. Would you…" Keitaro hesitated.

"Yes?" she asked.

"Wait, hold on. Let me do this right." Keitaro had been planning on asking Motoko out on a date but he stopped himself cold. He knew that it was just a half-hearted attempt by the last bit of his emotional defences to keep this woman at bay.

" _No, I have to make it clear."_

Keitaro held Motoko by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. She was confused at first, and then taken aback by how serious his expression was.

"Let me start over…" he took a deep breath. "Motoko-chan, I want to make this clear."

Motoko's heart skipped a beat and her arms started to tremble.

"Keitaro-san…" she whispered as she gazed into her eyes, her expression softening by degrees.

"I love you Motoko-chan and I want you to be my gir-"

That was about as far as Keitaro got before he found himself suddenly repeating their very first encounter at the Hinata-sou. This time however, there was no Kitsune hanging around to interrupt them and the kiss went on for as long as it needed. For as long as they both wanted.

LH-LH-LH

Su looked at her datapad and frowned. Motoko should have come out of the time jump days ago and Su knew that if she didn't come out soon, then she'd likely die. Simply put – her body was already functioning long past when it should have given up. Su wanted to cry but her tears hadn't come as easily as they had as on the day when she had learned that Tsuruko had passed away.

" _I don't understand… I only wanted to help and now it looks like Motoko and Keitaro are both gone. How come everything I do ends up going so terribly wrong?"_

She wondered if she should just tear Motoko out of the damn machine and send herself back instead. At least she could keep herself from making the stupid machine in the first place. Perhaps she could save Motoko's life. It'd be enough to warrant the risk.

LH-LH-LH

"Hey Keitaro… I've decided!" proclaimed Motoko as she latched onto her boyfriend from behind.

"Decided what? To give up boys and return to your true calling as a Lesbomancer?" snarked Kitsune as she entered the kitchen behind the pair.

She wouldn't admit it, but the Fox was extremely annoyed that the (in her opinion) mannish kendo freak had been able to steal away their hapless manager. Of course, it didn't help that in the process of doing so she had also made Keitaro largely immune from Kitsune's attempts at extortion and rent reduction.

"Hey Kitsune, what size are Naru's boobs these days? Still keeping a hands on approach to tracking?" retorted Motoko.

Kitsune raised her hands in defeat and laughed. "Fine, fine. I think I preferred it when you just swung your sword around at people. I guess the sword swinging is Keitaro's job now huh?" The clever fox cackled at her own double entendre and wisely took that moment to flee the kitchen before Motoko could respond.

"Hey, meet me at the Annex after dinner Kei-kun," Motoko said as she planted a kiss on Keitaro's cheek.

" _Why would she want to go to that old place?"_

LH-LH-LH

Motoko whistled to herself as she waited in the moonlight for Keitaro. The "older" Motoko had taken complete control approximately a week ago and both Motoko's were well aware of each other. It was strange sometimes to have conversations with yourself inside your head, or at least the strange part was not knowing what you were going to say.

" _How much longer do you think you have?"_

" _I don't know – I'm probably pretty close to dead at this point. I might even actually BE dead."_

" _If you're dead in the future does that mean you'll be stuck inside this skull of ours with me?"_

" _We could ask Su?"_

" _That might not be a good idea. We probably shouldn't be the ones to give her the idea to build something like this in the first place."_

" _Oh hey – there he is."_

" _I hope this works._

" _Me too."_

" _That's the same thing you know. Baka."_

Keitaro waved as he approached. "Hey Motoko-chan!"

She smiled and walked towards him, greeting him with a warm embrace.

"So what did you want to talk about, and why… out here?" The Annex wasn't a particularly well kept part of the Hinata grounds and in fact, a large portion of it was buried under a landslide that the inn simply didn't have the money to fix. The whole place should have been knocked to the ground long before Keitaro had ever arrived here.

"Well, like I said – I decided!" Motoko grinned as she reached into her school bag and retrieved a small pamphlet, handing it to Keitaro.

"Hmm… what do we have here?" The light wasn't particularly good, but it didn't take Keitaro long to work out the bold letters on the front of the brochure.

"Tokyo University College of Medicine?" he asked.

"I thought about it and I'm going to go to Todai with you and I thought… well originally I was thinking law, but after having some discussions with myself, I think medicine might be a better alternative."

Motoko didn't elaborate on the fact that she actually had discussed the matter with herself. There was no need to scare the poor boy.

"Well, that's great news but you know Motoko…" Keitaro was worried that Motoko was still hung up on his "promise". He had told her time and time again that as far as he was concerned, she _was_ his promise girl. She didn't need to try and prove anything to him. Still, if she was interested in going to Todai together, he had to admit that it sounded like fun…

"I know Kei-kun, I just want us to be together as much as possible. Is that bad?" she purposely gave the poor sucker her best puppy-dog eyes and pout. He was useless for a full minute.

"Also, there's one other thing I want us to do, right here at the Annex."

Keitaro raised his eyebrow. "Yeah… like I said… why here?"

Motoko chuckled. "Because I am superstitious and believe in out of fashion ideas like fate and destiny."

She made a grand sweeping gesture with her arms.

"This place used to be called the 'Inn of Fateful Unions'. There was a legend that said that any couple that spent the night here would always be together."

Keitaro smiled. "I've told you Motoko-chan, you don't need to worry about stuff like –"Keitaro found himself silenced by Motoko's finger being placed over his lips.

"Just come inside, baka," she grinned as she took his hand.

It was obvious that Motoko had spent a considerable amount of time cleaning up the ground floor of the annex. The place had been freshly swept, debris removed and in its place hung a variety of fresh sheets from the ceiling, almost as if they were partitioning off a portion of the lobby. Motoko gently guided Keitaro closer until she reached a point where she bent down and turned on some small battery powered camping lights.

"Are we going to camp here?" he asked her with incredulity.

Motoko looked at Keitaro with soft eyes and spoke. "I guess that's one thing we can do." She didn't wait for him to respond, instead sealing his lips with a kiss.

Keitaro was starting to get the idea.

Gently they both fell into each other's arms and descended to the floor. Motoko had placed down an assortment of cushions around a pair of futons, creating a little "nest" of sorts for them to relax on. Keitaro reeled under her assault of kisses until he was finally able to find a break to breathe.

"Really, Motoko-chan… you know I love you, but why all this? I'm not stupid enough to run away from the best thing to ever happen to me." He kissed her passionately to emphasize his point.

"Hey Keitaro, can we make a promise together?" she asked.

" _I'm starting to really hate promises. I wish Motoko wasn't so insecure about this… still, it's kind of cute how much she cares."_

"Sure. Anything you want. If I can do it, then I'll do it. I swear."

Motoko held out her pinkie and waited for Keitaro to join in the gesture.

"Let's promise to always be together," she said softly.

"I promise to always be by your side Motoko-chan," Keitaro stated. He didn't need a promise to know that he'd be a fool to ever leave her.

"I promise to always be by your side Keitaro-kun," she stated by way of affirmation of his pledge.

Together the two young lovers kissed.

" _How's that Su? That's at least a top 10 Getchu ranking. Or at least, it will be once I keep him up till morning…mmm"_

LH-LH-LH

Flat line.

Su stared intently at the monitor while the medical staff around her tried desperately to resuscitate her friend. Intellectually she knew that Motoko had died over 10 minutes ago, but emotionally she appreciated the efforts of the staff. Likely they were doing it more out of obligation to their princess than out of any real practical hope of saving the patient.

Su raised her hand.

"That's enough. Thank you everyone. It just wasn't meant to be."

She had wanted to scream, to cry, to rage at the unfairness of it all, but she couldn't. She was their princess. It was her job to bear their worries and pains and she knew that many of them would feel like they had let her down even though there had been nothing they could do. It had been her fault anyway.

 _Beep-Beep-Beep-Boop_

Su looked at the offending object on her desk. She had forgotten to turn it off. Still, it didn't answer the question…

" _Why is that stupid thing still going off?"_

LH-LH-LH

"Kei-ta-ro," giggled Motoko as she pressed her now bare chest against her boyfriend.

"Did I ever tell you how much I love it when you whisper in my ear?" she said in a low, husky voice.

"You mean, like this Mo-chan…"

Motoko's toes curled down and she practically squealed. "Yes! Exactly like that!"

LH-LH-LH

Su sat in her oversized desk chair and stared intently at the monstrosity that she had built. The damnable contraption had stolen her best friends life. She wondered why she had done it. What had she really accomplished? She hoped that Motoko at least had been happy with the time she had been able to steal away with Keitaro.

 _Beep-Beep-Beep-Boop_

LH-LH-LH

The couple collapsed in together in a heap of arms and legs, their energy having long since been depleted.

Her eyes were closed but she could still feel the warmth of rising sun filtering through the windows and hitting her face.

"Look Kei-kun… we made it," she murmured into the drowsing boys ear.

Keitaro squeezed his girlfriend in his arms. "Good job us." He chuckled as he nuzzled his face into her hair.

Motoko moved her hand to his and without either saying a word they interlocked fingers. She sighed and thought that the gesture was the perfect symbol for how she wanted fate to tie them together.

"This is the best magic," she said softly, to no one in particular.

LH-LH-LH

Kaolla Su looked at the device in her hand and gave a start.

" _When did I pull this out?"_

She gave it a flick and watched the screen go through its booting system. Eventually it made a familiar tone.

 _Beep-Beep-Beep-Boop_

She was surprised it still worked after all these years, but turned it off and turned her attention back to her latest project – a memory recalling device. Maybe she could use it to remember why she had looked for this old toy? After all, it's not like she needed a tracker to know where Keitaro was…

LH-LH-LH

"Dammit mom, will you wear something decent?" came the plaintive cry from an obviously distressed young man.

Motoko Urashima just rolled her eyes at her son. She happened to think that her swimsuit was both modern and attractive and there was no denying that despite her years she still had the figure to pull it off.

" _Really, the boy is more bashful than Keitaro."_

"What? I happen to think I look nice. Your father seems to approve." She emphasized the point by giving a languid wave and suggestive wink to a brown haired man playing in the sand with a couple of young girls.

"I think I can explain this one _imouto_."Tsuruko smiled impishly at her sister and nephew.

"The twins explained it to me a few years back. It appears that young men get quite irritated when their friends refer to their mothers as…" Tsuruko pondered for a moment.

"What was that word, Ken?" she playfully asked her nephew. The young man's face simply went three shades redder.

"Oh right!" Tsuruko snapped her fingers, pretending to remember.

"I believe it was 'MILF'. Hmm, I wonder what that means? Any idea?" she asked her younger sister.

Motoko raised her hands up in a shrug, her elbows pointed in and squeezed her breasts together.

"Heavens! I have no idea!" she said with mock confusion.

Kenta Urashima knew when he was defeated. It was bad enough when it was just his mother, but if Aunt Tsuruko was around he had no chance. Rather than face the scorn of the two women he simply turned heel and walked off to find his wife.

Tsuruko laughed at Kenta's retreating back. "That boy is far too easy."

Motoko nodded and picked up her beach towel from the sand. "He takes after his father. You should have seen him when 'Aunty Kitsune' used to babysit. I was afraid he'd die from the nose bleeds."

Motoko shook out her towel and then folded it over and wrapped it around her waist like makeshift skirt. The sun was still fairly high in the sky, but the scorching heat of the midday had given away to a cooler and gentle afternoon breeze coming off the sea. It was about as perfect of a day as anyone could wish for. Excusing herself from her sister she walked across the beach towards the shore and the playing children.

"Okaasan!" squeeled a young girl. She had long, dark hair like her mother and twin sister.

Motoko squatted down to eye level and smiled at her youngest child. Both Rieka and Ruko had been late, and unexpected, additions to their already large family. Altogether she and Keitaro had managed to raise a brood of five children. The eldest, Kenta, was born not much after her own 17th birthday. It had been quite scandalous at the time and when she had announced her pregnancy to their friends it was all she could do to keep her future husband from being murdered on the spot. Keitaro himself hadn't taken it all that well either, but eventually he came around. Oddly enough, they actually _had_ used protection, but it seemed that the magic of 'Inn of Fateful Unions' was more effective than the legends said. Either that or this was _exactly_ how it was supposed to work. Maybe she should have done more research.

"What are you and daddy making in the sand?" she asked her daughter while examining their attempt at sand sculpture.

"We're making a turtle!" she pronounced with glee.

Motoko's face fell. Of course they were. She shot a sideways glance at her husband who merely rubbed the back of his head and grinned.

"Don't think that cute guy act will work on me forever mister," she muttered at him and pretended to pout.

"Honestly, it _was_ the girls' idea," he said and then went back to helping their other daughter fill her bucket with sand.

Motoko decided she'd let this pass. After all, she was a charitable woman. "I think Kenta went to find Emi and their kids. Where are the other two terrors?"

Keitaro took off his glasses and wiped some sweat from his eyes. "They went with Su to pick up the girls from the airport."

"Aunty Su! Bannana!" screamed Ruko at the mention of her favorite aunt.

"Speak of the devil," stated Keitaro as he pointed behind Motoko.

"Hey guys! Are we ready to party?" came a shrieking yell from the top of the beach. A large SUV bearing the Molmolian flag had stopped at the top of the causeway and deposited a quartet of familiar women and the two missing Urashima children.

"It sounds like you started a little bit early Kitsune!" retorted Motoko in a loud voice that carried across the sand.

Keitaro smiled. "I wish Haruka and Kanako could be here…"

Motoko patted her husband on the head. He was being sentimental again. It was one of the reasons why she liked him so much.

"Aneta… we see them every day."

"I know, it's just… there aren't many opportunities for us all to get together like this. Really, we ought to thank Su."

Motoko agreed. They often tried to hold reunions at the inn on major holidays and while most former Hinata girls like Shinobu and Kitsune who either lived or worked close by often attended, it was a rare occasion for them to get _everyone_ together.

Keitaro took the hands of his two daughters. They were eager to go and see their "Aunties" and the two groups made their way to the center of the beach.

"So where are the boys?" asked Motoko. "And the kids? You know Naru, your husband missed his last check-up and he has a heart condition…"

Naru put her hand up. "Not now Urashima Sensei. You can yell at him over dinner while taking away his yakitori. I'm on vacation for once!" she grinned and cheekily swiped a drink from the sake bottle that her best friend was carrying.

"Hey Naru! Get your own!" pouted the sly fox.

"But that _is_ mine," growled Naru. "I'm the one who bought it!"

Kitsune shrugged. "Technicalities."

Shinobu rolled her eyes at the antics of her friends. The breeze picked up and she held on to her sunhat to keep it from flying away.

"Everyone else is getting their luggage sorted at the house and the kids are all tired from the flight. We just thought we'd come here first – urk!" Shinobu gasped as one of the Urashima twins launched herself into a very Su-like hug tackle against the diminutive woman.

Su was struggling with her own admirer who was busily crawling around her shoulders and perhaps attempting to chew on her head. "Do you guys want to move this party back to the house? I'm kind of…"

Ruko abandoned her task of masticating Su's cranium and screamed, "Hungry! Banananananana!"

Su smirked. "Yep. That."

LH-LH-LH

Keitaro wobbled down the hallway, bottle of sake in one hand and gorgeous woman in the other. Even after all this time he could get intoxicated off her scent alone – sure the sake might have helped, but what he was feeling right now was the same sort of heady rush that he had felt all those years ago.

Arriving at their room, he deftly tucked the sake bottle under his arm and opened the door and guided his "date" to their room.

"Mmm… Keitaro…" she moaned into his ear. She had probably a bit too much to drink tonight, but that wasn't all that uncommon. Celebrations like these always seemed to bring out the festive side of her.

Keitaro guided his wife to their bed as best he could, but almost predictably he tripped somewhere along the way and landed on top of her – his hands going to places where honestly, neither one of them really minded.

Motoko squirmed a little bit and fumbled with the loose shirt she had thrown on over her swimsuit. Failing to remove even a single button, she started to laugh. "I'm soooo drunk."

Keitaro rolled over to lie next to his wife, his glasses precariously hanging off the side of his face in a way that made them all but useless.

"Hey, Momo?" he asked, using the pet name that she never allowed him to speak in public.

"Hmm?" she said as she rolled over to face her husband.

"Do you ever wish that you had, I don't know…" he fumbled around for a moment, "…maybe gone back to Kyoto instead of being with me?"

Motoko sobered up. Keitaro had never asked her this question before. Something deep inside her, a feeling that she hadn't felt for years seemed to rise up.

"No." she said with an amount of force that surprised even her.

" _Wait… are you still in there?"_ she asked herself.

There was no response.

"What brought that on?" she asked Keitaro. Her hand traced a lazy circle on his chest.

"It's just… I don't know. I feel like you do so much for me and I can't imagine what I do for you – and no, cooking dinner doesn't really seem to justify it, you know? I mean, why did-"

Motoko silenced her husband with a long kiss and then whispered, "You stupid man."

Keitaro chuckled. "You know, Momo that doesn't really make me feel better."

She flicked him in the head softly with her forefinger. "It's not supposed to."

Still fighting against her inebriation, Motoko made a valiant effort to climb on top of Keitaro. Her hands rested on his shoulders and she lowered herself within inches of his face.

"Do you know what I tell everyone who asks me, 'How did you fall in love?'" she said with a smile.

Keitaro shook his head slowly; his eyes were still locked on his wife's smiling face.

"I tell them it was, 'Love at first sight' and it went something like this…"

Motoko parted her lips and together with Keitaro she re-enacted her all-time favorite memory.

Falling in love.

LH-LH-LH

Authors note:

So yeah, here's my little gift to this particular fandom. I've always had a thing for time travel stories, I don't know why – but maybe it has something to do with the romanticism of someone struggling to change fate or destiny. I did notice that there are a couple of time travel themed Love Hina fan fictions out there (and at least two of them I think are well written) but sadly not many of them (or any?) are completed. Because of this I decided to write this story and I also decided to make it a "one-shot" so that I knew it would have an end.

I decided on Motoko as the heroine for various reasons, but mostly because she's on my mind a lot right now due to another story I am working on called _One Thousand Cranes_ that is a "What if?" scenario detailing what might have happened if Keitaro and Motoko had lost their duel to Tsuruko and had been forced to marry.

Also, if you like Time Travel stories in general, you might want to check out my time travel themed Kim Possible fanfiction, "Ron Stoppable: Ultimate Monkey Master." It's very long (book length) and obviously, very "Ron-centric."

Once again, thank you everyone for reading and I would appreciate it if people who enjoyed this story would drop a line and let me know as well as click the favorite button by way of providing me feedback. We don't get paid to do these things, so every little bit of moral encouragement keeps people writing!

Thanks,

QC


End file.
